What a great read. Thanks for posting that Norm. Zen-like enjoyment of the little things in life and not getting too caught up in the world of "stuff, stuff, and more stuff" Good for him and a fine example for others.

I'm sorry but I don't see what the rest of you see. I see a spoiled, lazy, big kid jock just playing. Yes he has not blown his money, but living in a van in a Wal Mart parking lot with 2 million dollars in the bank? Come on. I get the freedom and travel and love of playing the game. But couldn't he do that while living in a decent apartment or even mobile home? I would be a lot more impressed if I had read about how he was giving back to disadvantaged youth, volunteered, or was getting an education during his off time instead of loafing around surfing out of a broken down van. Now I am not down on this guy at all, he is not bothering me any, but neither do I see any reason to hold him up an example to emulate.

I do think he needs to be held up to be admired. With all the bad behavior on the news with these young athletes, it's good to see someone out there not constantly partying, beating one of his long string of girlfriends, or blowing thru their money living large for the moment and being destitute at 35.

Imagine his feeling of independence. He's already got all the money he would ever need to continue to live how he chooses. He can concentrate on his passion of baseball while he still has it, or change direction and pursue something else.

He's got no more or less obligation to help the disadvantaged or poor than any one of us does. Maybe he'll get involved in charity work some day, or maybe he won't. Maybe he does things that haven't made the press? I'd much more admire someone that does those things without the cameras and the self aggrandizement that seems to be the norm these days. Regardless, it should not be any gauge for judgement for a person, no more than it should be for how we would judge you.

Becoming a top prospect requires 1,000's of hours of hard work and practice, practice for years, one reason few achieve success. It's not simply being blessed with birth ability but application of self to hone the ability.

We have a nephew that plays high school baseball. In addition to the high school schedule he plays fall ball and in the winter he spends part of every week in the batting cage and weight room and he's only in high school.

It says a lot that he has not appeared to waste the $2M of capital that his earlier efforts have provided. Many young people with similar ability quickly spend the money gained.

"In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success. This article will review a few examples from Gladwell’s research, and conclude with some thoughts for moving forward.

Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers."

I used to be in the music industry and knew many music stars. I was always impressed by their practice schedules and hours.

I'm generally not impressed with the phrase 'giving back', to me giving back implies some measure of owing to another. I am a 'giver' but never do it from the perspective of giving back.

Not that you meant this, but in some measure there is a serious amount of attacking of successful people and companies in this country instead of emulation and praise. I always wonder when I read of real achievers. Here I see a person that probably worked incredibly hard and has a measure of balance in his life.